The terrible tortures they inflicted upon their enemies have made their name a terror, and yet there were not so many burnt and hung and starved by them as perish among Christian nations by these means. The miseries they inflicted were light in comparison with those they suffered, and when individuals from them have come among us to expose the barbarity of savage white men, the deeds they relate equal any thing we know of Indian cruelty. The picture an Indian will give of civilized barbarism, leaves the revolting customs of the wilderness quite in the background. We experienced their revenge when we had put their souls and bodies on the rack, and with our fire-water had maddened their brains. There was a pure and beautiful spirituality in their faith, and their conduct was as much influenced by it as are any people, Christian or pagan. Is there any thing more barbaric in the annals of Indian warfare than the narrative of the destruction of the Pequod Indians? In one place we read of the surprise of an Indian fort by night, when the inmates were slumbering unconscious of danger. When they awoke they were wrapped in flames, and when they attempted to flee, were shot down like wild beasts. From village to village, and wigwam to wigwam, the murderers proceeded, “being resolved,” as our historian piously remarks, “by God’s assistance, to make a final destruction of them,” till finally a small but gallant band took refuge in a swamp “Burning with indignation and made sullen by despair; with hearts bursting with grief at the destruction of their nation, and spirits galled and sore at the fancied ignominy of their defeat, they refused to ask their lives at the hand of an insulting foe, and preferred death to submission. As the night drew on they were surrounded in their dismal retreat, and volleys of musketry poured into their midst, till nearly all were killed or buried in the mire.” In the darkness of a thick fog which preceded the dawn of day, a few broke through the ranks of the besiegers and escaped to the woods.